Sunday, July 31, 2011

It has been a long time since I first wrote about a version of MetrO for Android. I did not think then that it would take more than one year to achieve something and I apologize to all of you who expressed their frustration.

Today, I am very happy to announce that you will finally have something to install on your Android phones. It is really not much (hence the "preview" in the title and its "0.1" release number) but it will at least let you find your way in the more than 400 transportation networks we currently cover.

Installation

MetrO for Android should work on any phone with a system version equal or greater than 1.6 ("Donut"). It is optimized only for "regular" screen sizes (320x480 pixels) at the moment but should not have any problem with other sizes and densities (otherwise, please let me know).

To install the app and since it is not yet ready for the Android Market, you will first have to enable "third-party app installation" in the "developper" settings on your phone (for instructions, see here, for example). You can then download the application package here and install it manually on your device.

How to use

If you have used MetrO on other platforms, you should not be surprised: being no design wizard, I have just reproduced the same interface you already know.

On the first launch, you will see the city list panel and you will be invited to connect to the Internet to load the current list.

After you have installed some cities, they will appear in the list with a green robot icon, whereas the other available cities ares shown with a lightning icon (they will require an Internet connection to be loaded). Whenever possible, the files will be saved on the memory card.

The buttons let you switch between the complete list and a list of the cities present on your device, while the last one ("Update all") checks for updates on all the files you have already installed.

Besides other options available on a long press (discover them for yourself), you can download (if necessary) and open a city by simply pressing on its name.

The main screen, where you can find a route in the selected city, will now appear. Note that the last city you have opened will be automatically loaded when you restart the app.

You should now see the familiar text fields where you can enter your starting point and your destination. After you type 3 letters, a list of suggested matches will be shown, where you can select the stop or POI you are looking for.

Press the "Go" button and your route(s) will appear:

Among the features that are available in this release, the day and time button lets you change ... the day and time of your planned trip. There is also a hidden trick: shaking your phone will reset the contents of the screen (it may need some tweaking, though).

Now, if you open the menu, you will notice that there is still some work to do. The only option that is presently active is the one ("Cities") that gets you back to the list of cities, where you will be able to load a new one or check for updates.

What remains to do

The app is available only in English right now. I will add other languages when it is sufficiently advanced.

Obviously, the options that are grayed out in the current version will become active in time: access to the lists of stops, transportation routes, POIs, detailed information, a few preferences...

In addition, I will have to implement the geolocation and search by street address features, that will let you find a route from/to any place without knowing the stop names (in more than 50 cities, now).

Please comment

If you try out this preview release, do not hesitate to post your comments and/or issues or, better, to send me a mail.

As you may have noticed, the "MetrO Mobile" blog (now simply titled "MetrO Blog") has a new look and new features.

The previous design was built with an older version of Blogger and it was getting so difficult to manage that I had to make the switch. With the upgrade, I have been able to introduce a few additional features such as the "share" buttons at the end of each post or a mobile version.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

After the recent update to our Bogotá (Colombia) database, I have geocoded all its stops, which will allow for location- and address-based routing in our web and iPhone versions of MetrO. I also made the data available in our layer for the Layar augmented-reality browser.

Many disruptions will affect the tram network of Berlin (Germany) this summer (e.g. lines M8, M10, M17, 12, 27, 37). Consequently, I built a new version of our "temporary" database to prepare some of the changes entering into effect over the week-end.

M. Dulerm reports that some bus lines (17, 30, 31, 44, 51 and 71) in Toulouse (France) are suspended for the summer, while line 48 is operating for the same period. Line 2 and 34 also had their route changed.

M. Luz reports that services on the new metro line 4 in São Paulo (Brazil) are now extended until 9 PM. In addition, he noticed that the operating times on lines 1, 2 and 3 were inaccurate in our database, since services end at 1 AM on Saturday nights.